"William Morrison - Bad Medicine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

Meet the Scoundrels of the Spaceways as They Find That Cheating Cheaters is Universal

THE Saturnians had never seen anything like it, and they crowded around the novel space ship that
Trenholm and O'Hara had set down among them. The native's broad good-natured faces were agape
with excitement.
On the side of the ship was a flamboyant painting of an Indian girl holding aloft a bottle that contained
The Red Man's Old-Fashioned Radioactive Herb Remedy, fortified with vitamins A to R inclusive, the
latter made with the most recently discovered carbon isotope.
Beside the girl, there had originally been a sign announcing that the ship was the home of Trenholm
and O'Hara's Gigantic Medicine Show, but the names of the owners had been painted out and replaced
by the better serving names of the Jones Brothers. Trenholm and O'Hara, with understandable modesty,
desired no publicity for themselves.
O'Hara was giving the Saturnians his usual spiel now.
"Come closer, ladies and gentlemen, come closer," he chanted. The ladies and gentlemen, eyes alight
with expectation, obeyed. Their faces were elephantine, with huge flapping ears, but without trunks. And
to O'Hara they brought back old memories of those ancient cartoons that in bygone days had depicted
the Republican Party as a man with an elephant's head.
But it was not the heads that chiefly interested him. It was the rough, pink beads they wore around
their necks.
"We are now about to give you, ladies and gentlemen," he went on, "absolutely free of charge, two
hours of the most solid, fascinating, instructive, and educational entertainment it has ever been the fortune
of any mortal being to experience! Yes, sir, ladies and gentlemen. Entertainment unparalleled and
absolutely free of charge!"
Trenholm threw a switch then, and their ancient movie projector flashed a picture of a Martian
dancing girl on the three-dimensional screen, while the braying of one of the latest dance tunes came from
the loudspeaker. Most of the music had been produced by the new electric trumpets and trombones,
with shrill overtones that were guaranteed to deafen a sensitive ear. The Saturnians watched and listened
as if spellbound. O'Hara stared at the pink necklaces, and whispered:
"Trenholm, my lad, we've got a fortune in our hands!"

TRENHOLM nodded. He was a large man, blond, something like an ancient Viking in appearance,
but with no trace of Viking recklessness. Recklessness wouldn't have paid. These Saturnians were twelve
feet tall, with muscles even out of proportion to their size, and an Earth man compared to them had no
more than the strength of a child.
O'Hara was small and dark, with a volubility that contrasted with Trenholm's tendency to silence.
And at the moment, he was excited, very excited.
Attracted by the noise of the music, more Saturnians were flocking to the ship. O'Hara almost went
crazy trying to estimate the value of those necklaces. They were made of satargyrite, which was mostly
silver sulphide, but they contained appreciable quantities of Element 102.
Element 102 was the only known source of atomic energy whose transformation was capable of
being accelerated or retarded at will, and the price for it was high, extremely so. But getting it was a very
dangerous business. The Saturnians, being below par mentally, were protected by stringent laws. If
Trenholm and O'Hara were caught at their little game, the penalty would be at least ten years in a jail that
boasted no air conditioning, no television movies, and which guaranteed to teach wayward men the error
of their ways.
The reel showing the Martian dancing girl came to an end, and Trenholm slipped on another that
depicted a Mercurian minstrel show. The jokes and gags were so babyish that a ten-year-old Earth child
would have flushed with shame to be caught listening to them, but they suited the Saturnian taste
perfectly, and gales of laughter swept the crowd.
 O'Hara did a little mental calculating then. Judging from the mass of people collected here, they